3 Ways to Simplify HOA Administration With the Right Website Software
Every homeowners association administrator wants to achieve better results for their community and lighten their workload at the same time. Let’s be honest: Most of you are volunteers, and you’re trying to fit your administrative duties around full-time jobs, family responsibilities, and the need for some “me” time. With the right homeowners association website software, you can make your life easier without sacrificing the quality of your contributions to a smoothly running community.
Lose the paper trail
Does that old 20th century relic of administrative inefficiency still dominate your community’s operations? We’re talking about manual communications: envelopes, stamps, bounced and undelivered e-mail messages, phone tag, and all the other time-consuming manual systems on which people still rely to deliver HOA notices, invoices, and more. Just the thought of the amount of work involved is enough to make most HOA administrators cringe.
Of course, everyone thought that e-mail would solve all the problems that snail mail presented. All those electrons would flow straight into people’s inboxes, and no message ever would go astray. That was before spam and scams took over the e-mail universe, and mail delivery rules became stringent to avoid inundating the innocent in bogus communications from the guilty. The same provisions that protect you from fake sweepstakes winnings, phishing attempts, and a host of other digital annoyances are the reasons that many of your legitimate messages fail to get through to their recipients, at least partially because—as a volunteer administrator—you probably have to use your personal e-mail address to communicate with residents, and you may not be on their whitelists for approved message delivery.
On top of that, even proper message delivery doesn’t guarantee that your recipient actually reads what you sent.
But when you can set up an organized, professional, whitelisted e-mail delivery process that ensures that your messages actually arrive, and that they clearly come from a legitimate, organized entity that your recipients recognize as a part of their daily lives, then e-mail actually can solve some of the problems it was intended to solve.
So how do you take advantage of all of these conveniences and spam preventives for your homeowners association? When you choose the right homeowners association website software provider, you gain access to built-in messaging capabilities with the full power of professional whitelisting behind them. Your messages actually get through—and they present the polished appearance that represents your community both attractively and appropriately.
Along with the ability to skip the snail mail and straighten out the e-mail delivery process, the right HOA website software also enables you to post your essential documentation directly on your website, control who can see the files you post, and enable your residents to download these files around the clock—minus the need for you to attach documents to e-mail messages in response to requests for information. No more scanning, printing, mailing, or “I’ll drop that off at your house” errands that take time away from more-important tasks.
Skip the bulletin board
How do you take care of amenity reservations? Are you still thumb-tacking a sign-up sheet to a corkboard in the clubhouse? Do residents still call you to try to book a tennis court or reserve a meeting room for a birthday party? Are you tired of telling people, “Please use the sign-up sheet in the clubhouse”?
We thought so. With the right homeowners association website software, you can replace all these quirks and inconveniences of amenity management and reservations with an easy-to-use online system that automatically shows who has reserved what, blocks off previously reserved times, reminds residents about reservations, and even collects fees for any amenity that involves them.
Behind the scenes, your website software manages the amenity calendar, automatically preventing residents from accidentally double booking, and solves a lot of problems without giving you additional headaches.
Get rid of the ARC confusion
You created the architectural rules in your governing documents for a reason: to protect the appearance and the value of your property. So when residents contact you with requests for modifications and renovations, how do you handle the process? Is this a long chain of “who-said-what-to-whom” e-mail messages? Do you still rely on—shudder—paper forms? Or must you e-mail a PDF file for residents to print out, fill in, and mail back to you?
And how do you handle the conversation that all but inevitably arises around every renovation or modification request, as you attempt to clarify exactly what the resident had in mind, and verify the compliance of these requests with your covenants?
Why not shut down the confusion and waste of time, and replace the complex web of ineffective manual processes with a unified, cohesive online destination for architectural requests, administrative replies and even behind-the-scenes conversation, resident modifications, and approvals or denials?
With the right homeowners association website software, your HOA can eliminate the hassles, alleviate the headaches of ARC requests and manage them efficiently.
We’re here to solve your problems
At HOA Start, we’ve spent years working with homeowners associations of every size, and we understand both the headaches and the expectations of HOA administrators like you. That’s how we’re able to build our software with solutions to the very real problems you face every day. Want to see for yourself? Sign up for a completely free 15-day trial, and experience all our features for yourself. See how easy it is to improve administration and help keep your community affairs on track.
